It’s Not For Money: Why So Many Women Are Dating Less Attractive Men

Maybe he has a great personality. Maybe he’s rich. Maybe he’s kind to her. Maybe he has a huge d*ck.

There’s a multitude of reasons why that hot girl is holding the hand of that less hot man. There are numerous psychological answers behind the quandary that perplexes insecure passersby and jealous men staring at these couples across the crosswalk.

Why the hell is she with him? How the hell did he pull that off? Are her standards dipping, or does he fulfill her in some way hot men can’t? Someone, please, give me an answer!

Unfortunately for the illiterate, the answer lies with the illustrious Jack Kerouac, who once wrote, “The world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness." You know what? Women do just want their feet kissed.

After years of broken hearts and deceit by the hot men we so yearned after, women are really just looking for someone to show a little worship, a little praise. As the Stone Roses so eloquently put it, “I wanna be adored!”

As much as love is a drug, worship is an even easier one to get addicted to.

As the divorce rate increases, boys continue to let us down, and sexual trysts with hot men only ever turn into one-night stands; maybe we no longer want to waste our time looking for the love our parents never found.

Maybe “true love” doesn't exist. Maybe we're wasting our time looking for the perfect romance when we should just be looking for the perfect pedestal.

Relationships are more likely to last

A study reported in Daily News revealed that women who marry uglier men have happier marriages than ones who marry attractive men.

It’s an evolutionary thing. Men are more concerned with the appearance of their mate, ensuring they will have good genes to pass on to their children. Women, on the other hand, are less obsessed with the genetic makeup of their children and are looking for stability in a man, not just strong genes.

Having a hotter wife is also the reason husbands are more attentive and motivated to make their marriage work. Men who are hotter than their wives, however, are more likely to take them for granted.

In a similar study reported in the Journal of Family Psychology, 82 newlyweds were evaluated, and the couples with a wife more attractive than her husband were more content than those couples with equal attractiveness.

It makes sense; women want to be appreciated, and men want to show off their prize. A good marriage is based on compromise: A hot woman can make her man proud, and a proud man can make his wife happy.

Women will choose worship over love

Your drunk mother, dying grandmother or overbearing neighbor may have once told you, “Marry a man who loves you more than you love him.” It's scary advice when you’re 14, 18, or still grappling in your 20s. But at a certain point, this advice comes back, ringing truer than ever.

We've watched the evolution of our parents' relationships and our favorite celebrity breakups; we've experienced the beginning of our own slow demise. Women finally came to the insightful conclusion that everyone grows old and ugly, so we may as well find a man who loves us when our junk goes bad, and we can’t remember what we looked like at 25.

Women, more than men, need to feel loved. Women need to hear it, see it and understand that we are appreciated. They don’t want to wonder where your affection lies and have to guess your true feelings.

Having a less attractive man means having someone who isn't easily going to drop you for a hotter girl. It brings us back to the idea that less attractive men are more appreciative, and women just want to be adored.

Women are less shallow than men

Guys see through their eyes; women see through their ears.

According to Nigel Barber, Ph.D., evolutionary psychologist and author of “The Science Of Romance,” women’s looks are more important to their dating success than a man's. This is nothing new, however.

Since we’ve been old enough to date, women have understood that their looks always come before their man's. Their looks were of the utmost importance in terms of their relationship status. They were supposed to be pretty, hot, cute or beautiful.

A man can carry his weight in the relationship based on any number of factors: athleticism, reputation, personality or social status.

Barber goes on to explain that women care more about their looks because looks are more “consequential” to them. The key word here, "consequential," means that women's looks are dependent on their ability to secure a man and a relationship.

Less attractive men are inherently more confident and outgoing

Women aren’t going after less attractive men, they are being pursued by them more often.

According to a study published in UK’s Telegraph, less attractive men are inherently more confident about their looks due to an evolutionary trait that keeps them from missing mating opportunities. It's a false confidence, but confidence, nonetheless.

Unlike their attractive counterparts, less attractive men are more outgoing and optimistic when it comes to approaching women, explaining why hot guys are never hitting on hot women. This inflated ego gives unattractive men a leg up on attractive men because they are pursuing the women, rather than waiting for women to come onto them.

According to the study, published in the Psychological Science Journal, "Men who rated themselves high on attractiveness were more likely to over-perceive women’s interest. The more attractive they actually were to women, however, the more likely they were to under-perceive.”

It’s this eery catch-22 that makes women fall for the unattractive man because he acts like an attractive one. Either way, less attractive men are hitting on hot women as hot men stand around wondering where all the hot women have gone.

Women like security

We’ve come to an age where as much as we secretly yearn for big pecks, full hairlines and six-pack abs, we've also started to yearn for something else; something that will comfort us late at night more than big arms and perfect bone structure: security

We’ve all been screwed by the Hot Guy, felt insecure around the good-looking guy or experienced the constant anxiety that comes with dating a guy who thinks he’s better than us.

We’ve felt great taking him out, showing him off to our friends and taking Facebook photos with him. But at dinner, in bed or watching a movie in the darkness, when we saw his phone blinking and his distant stares, we didn’t feel so comforted.

Being with a less attractive man brings security, as shallow and insecure as that sounds.

If men can say they want a hot woman, why can’t women say they want a devoted man?